This is what happens when I clean.

Posted on by
2

I think I’m nesting.

I know, I know…it’s like, a month late. But there was so much going on in my life a month ago. I was commuting for school, so I was at my parents’ house five days a week, and I couldn’t nest there; you know, it not being my home and all. And when I was at my own home, I was so exhausted that I slept, rather than cleaned. Plus, I knew we were moving at the end of the semester, so I rationalized that there was no reason to clean, because we were leaving anyway.

So now that we’re at our new place, I’ve decided I’m going to be Martha Stewart, Claire Dunphy, and Jillian Michaels all rolled into one. Impeccable housekeeper, amazing cook, crafty. Hilarious, crazy, yet wonderful mother. Super driven and fitness-oriented, and in incredible shape. 

I make that promise to myself every time we move (which, thus far in Andy’s and my relationship, has been four times), and I always fail to keep it. But I figure if I get just a little further on that promise every time, I’ll eventually make it.

ANYWAY. My point: I was cleaning today, and I found a plastic storage container that held about 70 pages of stuff I wrote during my junior and senior years of high school.

Not even close to even being half the stuff I wrote during that time, but it’s a start. I’ve been looking for this stuff for about three years.

So I’ve decided to share some of it with all of you. Keep in mind, I was a painfully angsty sixteen- or seventeen-year-old when I wrote these. Actually, I found some stuff I wrote when I was a very morbid thirteen-year-old. Stuff that I refined for years and may eventually share.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling and get to the first story I’ve decided to share.

 

Facing you like this isn’t easy. I’ve been out all night. You never once checked on me. You trusted my judgment and my loyalty.

But you shouldn’t have.

 

I stand before you, shaking, sweating eighty-proof bullets, and telling you lies. I prattle on, rationalizing, for some reason, that if I talk more, you’ll believe more. Bright lights around the room set me ill at ease as I tell you I had fun with my friends. That perhaps I had a little too much to drink, but I came home slowly and carefully, using roads less traveled. Less patrolled.

Do you believe a word I’m telling you?

 

Claiming alcohol-induced fatigue, I opt to sit down, and you sit close to me. I try to steady my breathing and smile, brushing your hair out of your eyes. Those eyes still take my breath away.

My pulse quickens.

 

Don’t I reek of guilt?

Can’t you feel lies in my touch?

Doesn’t infidelity echo in my laugh?

 

How in the world could I do something like this to someone so precious to me?

 

I lay my head back and my stomach churns. Chalking up my nausea to the booze is useless. You speak sweetly and I wonder how you’re not reading it all in my eyes. Eventually your touch hurts my heart too much.

I smell like bad bar food, I tell you, and I need to go shower. Go ahead to bed, sweetheart.

I’ll be there soon.

 

The hot water isn’t enough to melt my frigid heart. My wedding ring remains on my finger. Seeing it makes me furious, and I pound my fist on the wall of the shower, and I immediately regret it, sure I’ve woken you. The tears rolling down my cheeks are hotter than the water I’m trying to boil myself in. They burn thin trails through my skin. The soap doesn’t do the trick the first time around, so I wash myself again, scrubbing until my skin stings.

But you can’t wash a filthy conscience clean in the shower.

 

By the time I come to bed, your breaths are coming slowly and evenly. Your serene face captures my gaze for long moments.

I love you so much.

 

Softly I kiss your warm, tired lips. You don’t even stir.

I cry myself to sleep wondering how I, the demon with the rancid heart, could still be loved by such a beautiful, perfect angel.

The One Where I Had A Baby

Posted on by
3

imagejpeg_2-37So last you knew, I basically looked like this, right? I believe this was at 35 weeks, 6 days.

This is roughly what I look like right now.

IMG_20130106_101409MAGIC!

Actually, it’s mostly genetics and breastfeeding, also some portion control and running around after an almost-three-year-old.

Let me back up and explain why I’ve been MIA since, like, 36 weeks.

IMG_20121228_023911OMG DID YOUR OVARIES NOT JUST EXPLODE?!

This is my son, Lucas. He was born on December 27. I was 37 weeks exactly. He is absolute perfection, just like his older brother.

I still cannot fit in my pre-pregnancy jeans. I know, that picture is deceiving.

I had a lot of people, when I was, pregnant, ask me if I was in regular clothes, and basically, if I’d “gained any weight at all besides the belly?!” My response was always, “I’m all ass and thighs this time around.” As opposed to the way I was with Logan, where I wore my pre-pregnancy jeans to the hospital when I went INTO LABOR. And nobody believed I had gotten way big in that general area. Well, anyone who doubted can watch me as I do The Jeans Dance to put on my favorite pre-pregnancy pants, which weren’t even particularly tight when I got pregnant.

Actually, you can’t, because that would be creepy, not to mention probably turn into one of my lowest self-esteem moments of all time.

Anyway, now onto Lucas’ birth story. Because I over-share like that.

The 26th was the day we did our big Christmas dinner with my parents. My brother would have been there, but he was at USAF Basic Training, and my sister-in-law-to-be moved out of state with her family when he left. So it was the five of us, and we had dinner and hung out and talked and laughed and basically made ourselves merry.

But not in a weird way, kind of like that came out.

I’ve had sciatica for a long time. My chiropractor has to fix it basically every time I go to him for an adjustment. It’s a pain I’m used to, and it was pretty fierce this pregnancy. But on the night of the 26th, it was horrendous. I couldn’t do anything to relieve the pain, and the stretches the chiropractor had given me to do weren’t working in the slightest. I felt the pain all the way down to my ankle, which is way farther down my leg than I’d ever felt it.

My mom said she wondered if I was maybe in the beginning stages of back labor, but since I wasn’t due for 22 days, and since Logan was eight freaking days late, and since I was tentatively scheduled for induction at 39 weeks, I was SURE it wasn’t labor. Just Lucas settling further down. But my mother said over and over, “I don’t think you’re making it to term with this one.” Prophetic.

We went back to our new place for our first night as a whole family, and Andy and I watched Taken. We finally decided to turn the lights out and go to bed at about 2 am (we’re night owls, don’t judge), and we brought Logan into our bed with us, because we didn’t want him waking up in a brand new room in the middle of the night and freaking out, not knowing where we were. I laid on my side, by Logan, and the pain in my hips was unbearable. I rolled over once. Twice. Three times. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew I was in enough pain by 2:30 am that there was no way I was going to sleep that night. I started pacing by the bed, then realized that what I was feeling were actually contractions. They got more intense as I paced, and I woke up Andy.

He kept asking if I was in labor, and I KEPT SAYING NO, because I was only JUST 37 weeks (which is technically term, meaning they won’t stop your labor once you hit this point), and there was no way he was making his appearance this early. In any case, my contractions weren’t regular; I would get three or four back to back, with about twenty-second breaks in between, then I would go for ten minutes without one.

I walked around the house, took a shower, drank an entire bottle of water in about 90 seconds, and timed my contractions. All the things They tell you to do when you think you’re in labor. Oh, they also tell you something about the contractions being so bad “You can’t talk through them.” That was definitely the case by 3:15 am, when I got out of the shower. But the contractions wouldn’t regulate, so I absolutely denied that I could be in true labor.

Recall that I was induced with Logan, and had no idea what it felt like to go into true labor naturally, much less BACK LABOR.

All of my prenatal care had been done an hour north of where we’re living now, and they were as sure as I was, given Logan’s tardiness out of the womb, that I could at least make it to my tentative induction date at 39 weeks, so I wouldn’t have to do the is-it-labor-or-is-it-not dance, and have to make sure I drive all the way up there too early, so I’d be sent home (because I’d have nowhere to go except back down here, and it would be a huge waste of time and gas), or too late, so I’d end up delivering on the side of the highway on my way up there. Because, seriously, guys, Andy’s and my cars are both messy enough from the move. The last thing either of them needed was amniotic fluid and afterbirth all over the passenger’s seat.

So I called my midwife’s answering service at 3:30 to describe what was happening and ask what she advised. The answering service dispatcher guy called both numbers he had for her, and paged her. She was supposed to call me back within fifteen minutes. She did not. So I called again, and dispatcher man called and paged all of her numbers yet again, and also called and paged another midwife, who was not even associated with the midwifery group where I had my care done. MY midwife never called back, but the auxiliary midwife did, as we were on our way to my parents’ house at almost 4 am to drop Logan off because I was in so much pain, there was no way we were NOT going to a hospital. Any hospital. Auxiliary Midwife knew nothing about me, my pregnancy, my situation (living forever away from the hospital), and therefore, her advice to wait until the contractions were five minutes apart was totally useless. That actually would have been useless advice from anyone, since, even by the time I delivered Lucas, my contractions hadn’t regulated.

She said that I could just head into the nearest hospital and have them put me on the monitor for the customary two hours, to see what my contractions looked like, and whether I was dilating, and other gross lady business. She also sounded like she just wanted me to get off the phone, and as quickly as possible, so she could go back to sleep.

I told Andy there was no way I was sitting in the car for what would probably end up being about an hour and a half to make it to the hospital at which I had all my prenatal care. Take me to the closest labor and delivery unit.

Long story short (and less graphic), they put me on the monitor, then made me walk for an hour, and my contractions regulated to 3-4 minutes apart, and were all in my back. I felt like my sacrum was literally being crushed. They put me back on the monitor, checked me again, and made me walk for ANOTHER hour. I was so sure they were going to send me home, I sat in the hallway, crying, because I hadn’t had a contraction in nine minutes, but the day nurse came in after consulting with the OB on call and said, “If you want to go ahead and get your stuff together, we have a room ready for you.”

I don’t remember ANYTHING about actually receiving the epidural when I had Logan. Not how it felt, not if it hurt, not how long it took…nothing. So getting it this time was way less than fun and comfortable. It was miserable and it felt like there were bubbles riding up my spine as he finished placing it. Also, it took FOREVER AND EVER.

My father-in-law was in the delivery room, except when they checked me and when I was pushing, along with my sister-in-law, my mom, and Andy.

Unlike with Logan, I felt enough pressure/pain (yes, I swear, it was PAIN by the time he was ready to come out) to sort of know when I needed to push, and when they asked why I hit the call button at noon on the 27th, I believe my exact words, between contractions that had me pounding my fist on the bed rail, were, “SOMETHING IS EITHER GOING TO POP OR FALL OUT OF ME!”

Fifteen minutes and four or so contractions later…

IMG_20121227_160714Well, this was about two hours later, but you get what I mean.

He is perfect, just like his wonderful, surprisingly not jealous at all, older brother.

Now, I hate to cut this short, but I felt I needed to update you, and in so doing…you know, retelling the story, and looking at all these pictures, and getting all emotional…let’s just say I need to feed Lucas. Like now.

Nursing moms know what I mean.

One more.

IMG_20130108_125659Oh teh feelz, guyz.

Now just sit there and let your womb glow. I know, my kids have that effect on people.

Innocence Taken

Posted on by
1

I didn’t post a bump watch this week. I was going to update today, but in the wake of the horrific news out of Connecticut from this morning, I’m deciding there are much, much more important things going on right now than how round I’m getting (though there is nothing more precious in the world, of course, than my family…my children, one of whom still lives within me).

I am shaken, and I have not been able to stop crying since I began looking at news sites, and through my Facebook news feed, two hours ago.

As was the case for my post following the Aurora shooting, and during the Waldo Canyon fire this summer, today, what I say has nothing to do with me, besides learning to cherish my own family so much more. Hug your own kids, parents, siblings, spouses, loved ones a little tighter tonight. Spend extra time with them before you go to bed, or leave their presence. Say an extra thank you for all of them.

I shared this on Facebook, but I think it bears repeating:

On April 20, 1999, I was taken out of school early. I remember exactly where I was on our route home when my mother told me what had happened at Columbine High School, only an hour and a half away from me. I was eight years old, and I knew the situation was sad, but I could not intellectually or emotionally comprehend the depth of the devastation inflicted on the entire nation (and beyond) by Harris and Klebold.

Today, at 22, as the mother of a child who is nearly school age, and with another beautiful gift from God soon to arrive, I hear the news out of Connecticut and I still cannot wrap my thoughts or emotions around events like this. I cannot fathom what anyone touched by this situation – from parents and loved ones of those taken from this earth, to the first responders on the scene, to the medical examiner who has indescribable task of determining what happened to these precious, innocent victims – is going through right now. I can just sit here and weep and pray.

Logan’s voice from mere feet away from me, saying, “Mommy? I love you,” for no reason other than the thought crossed his mind, brings me to my knees. I do not cherish my child enough. I do not thank God for him enough. That changes now.

God, be with everyone in any way involved with this situation. Let this be a lesson to the rest of us to hold our children, and truly, all of our loved ones, a little closer, a little tighter, and a little more dear this holiday season. Let us never take for granted one moment we have with anyone we love in this life.

Bump Watch: 33 and 34 (billion) Weeks

Posted on by
2

I’m never again going to not be pregnant. I have been pregnant forever, and it’s never going to end. This is the point at which I’ve decided to accept that fact.

So here’s what 33 weeks looked like, since I pretty much skipped that. And by pretty much, I mean I completely and totally skipped it.

imagejpeg_2-35And here’s 34 weeks:

imagejpeg_2-36I’m essentially giving you a tour of my parents’ house from belly level. I know, I’m such a gracious, considerate hostess.

So I actually do have a super exciting pregnancy near-emergency story.

Tuesday, on my VERY LAST DAY OF CLINICALS, I woke up at about 5 am, completely out of breath. I propped myself up on an extra pillow and focused on my breathing, and I fell back asleep until my alarm went off at 5:50. I grabbed breakfast on my way to clinical (don’t tell Andy I’m spending money on fast food, he hates that), and went to our little beginning of the day conference thing in the employee break room.

So I felt like crap and was trying to catch my breath through the whole thirty-minute meeting, and when we were standing up to go on the floor, I got tunnel vision and couldn’t catch my breath. A fellow student took my pulse, which was just over 100 (high), and then we went upstairs so they could take my blood pressure.

“Normal” blood pressure is 120/80, but mine runs around 96/56 (yes, that specific). With the lightheadedness and the tunnel vision, and the fact that I was seeing spots (did I mention that part? I don’t remember. But I was seeing spots for sure), I thought that, if anything, my blood pressure had dropped.

Nope. 138/83. That’s a big problem, and high blood pressure out of nowhere in pregnancy can mean preeclampsia. Not. Good.

So I laid down on the couch in the employee lounge, and made some phone calls, and eventually it was determined I needed to go home, and I needed to go see my midwife, like, RIGHT NOW. Problem was, I couldn’t drive. So another student took me home, then a friend drove me to the midwife.

I was nauseous, my head was pounding, my vision was completely jacked up, I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart was racing (my pulse got up to 118 beats per minute), and on top of it all, I was almost having a panic attack because I thought there was a chance they were going to have to deliver Lucas, like, immediately because somehow I suddenly had preeclampsia. I wasn’t ready for that.

Luckily, though, given my symptoms and the lack of protein in my urine (TMI, sorry), it was determined that it WASN’T preeclampsia, and probably just idiopathic pregnancy-induced hypertension.

I feel all smart and fancy saying that.

I obsessively took my blood pressure the rest of the day on Tuesday, then most of the day yesterday, and it’s been lower than it was Tuesday morning, but still high for me, and I’m still having a hard time catching my breath, and still seeing spots. So that’s awesome. But Lucas is doing well, and using my organs as punching bags, so I can’t complain too much.

In other news, I’m less than a week from done with the semester, and for real, HALLELUJAH on that one. Three days of finals next week, and that’s it. I’m so ready for the break.

Anyway, that’s all my news for now. Enjoy.

 

 

Bump Watch: 32 Weeks (and two days)

Posted on by
1

I seriously have less than two months of this pregnancy left.

And it’s like Sweatpants R Me up in here.

Supposedly Lucas weighs just under four pounds at this point, which seems incredibly unfair, considering I have gained…A LOT MORE than that.

I kid, I kid. Almost four pounds, and almost seventeen inches long. He’s five weeks past what they consider the age of vitality, meaning that at 27 weeks, if you go into the hospital with any kind of complication, the ready-for-anything ER nurses will freak out just a little, practically toss your enormous backside in a wheelchair, and run – literally run - you upstairs to labor and delivery. I learned that at 28 weeks, when I had strange, tight pain in my lower abdomen and lower back pain that I never had with Logan. Everything was fine; I was just having some unfamiliar round ligament pain, and the relaxin was just starting to kick in, meaning ev. er. y. thing. in my lower back and pelvis is suddenly seemingly free-floating, and apparently that’s why my sacrum literally turns within my pelvic girdle and pinches my sciatic nerves on both sides like crazy.

Pregnancy is super fun.

Also, fun little nuance I’ve noticed: most nursing students who want to do flight nursing, trauma/emergency room nursing, etc, are absolutely freaked out at the thought of delivering a baby. I have had more than one aspiring ER nurse explain to me how much they’d love to be elbow-deep in a stabbing victim or be the one to place a chest tube (though that’s not until one becomes a DNP) or be the one to manually massage a patient’s heart while in surgery…but mention to them that you want to work in labor and delivery or mother-baby, and they’ll wrinkle up their nose like you just pooped in the corner of the room.

Go figure.

I’ve been off school and at my own home, with my own family, (I know, it’s a miracle) since last Saturday, and tomorrow I have to get back to that damn proverbial grind. I cried a little tonight, after we went and saw Red Dawn (don’t believe Rotten Tomatoes, it TOTALLY deserved more than 11%), and I have a feeling I’ll have a full-blown meltdown at some point tomorrow before I actually leave my house to spend the week at my family’s house.

This week and next week, I have my last four days of clinicals, and regular classes the rest of the week. The week after that, we have some totally weird, jacked up schedule for finals and evaluations and all other sorts of boring but necessary stuff. By the end of this semester, I will be 35 weeks pregnant. THIRTY. FIVE. WEEKS. PREGNANT.

I have these weird dreams where I’m suddenly in the hospital and for some reason, they want to take Lucas out of me early. There’s no emergency, no real sense of urgency, but they just…want to take him out. And I always refuse, and wake up before anything is concluded, but still…freaking weird dreams, yo. Last night, I had another dream where they checked me and I was already dilated to 5.5 centimeters. I mean, I definitely don’t want to go eight days overdue with Lucas, like I did with Logan, but 32 weeks is definitely too early. I’d prefer to go into labor on my own this time, maybe around 39 weeks, 3 days. Yes, I actually think about this stuff. At the very least, he better stay in there until at least 37 weeks.

Anyway, I’m sorry I’ve been kind of just using my blog lately as a totally disjointed, inconsistent, infrequent, stream-of-consciousness diary thing, but in three short weeks, I should be able to breathe a little easier, and think a little clearer, and maybe be interesting or even funny again. That would just be awesome.

In the meantime, this is pretty much all my brain can manage to spit out.

Now it’s time for some pumpkin pie, y’all. Peace.

Bump Watch: 31 Weeks

Posted on by
2

I have nothing clever for this. I just keep sticking out more, and my love handles keep getting thicker.

I know the old wives’ tales aren’t necessarily to be believed, but some of them have been true with both of my pregnancies. I want salt. Always. All the time. I’m carrying like that - low, very round, straight out.

OH MY GOSH BEFORE I FORGET.

We have a name. Nine weeks to go and we finally have a name.

Ready for it?

Drumroll please…

Lucas Cade.

OMG I know, right?!

Also, I am currently the weight at which I delivered Logan. Nine weeks before my due date. So, though I know it’s totally normal, expected, healthy (I haven’t yet hit a 25-pound gain, so there’s still some jiggle room in the next two months. See what I did there? I made a funny.), etc, with your second child to gain more…I’m not exactly thrilled to be seeing the numbers on the midwife’s scale that I am. I mean, come on, I looked like this at 5 weeks pregnant:

Yes, I love my child, and nourishing him, and growing him within my being is miraculous, and most of the time I even love being pregnant. But vanity wins sometimes, and I’ll look at my hips and my thighs and my upper arms, and I just think, Wow…I can’t wait to have this baby and get back in shape.

Obviously it’s not helping that I have to be on my butt in class ten hours a week, and I have less energy and time to actually move around and stay maybe a little in shape with this pregnancy. Not to mention, I’m three years older, and as a nursing school friend told me, “Your body’s been down this road before.” Meaning the hormones tell my body, “DUDE STOCK UP ON THE CALORIES, STORE THEM EVERYWHERE, BUT MOSTLY THE ASS AND THIGHS, SHE’LL TOTALLY LOVE THAT.” and seriously OMG DID I JUST FIND A STRETCH MARK OVER MY BELLY BUTTON?! For real, body?!

And then I end up feeling like a whale (while yes, I know, my weight and weight gain are absolutely healthy and whatnot, but part of my brain won’t believe that), and I try desperately not to spiral into self-loathing that ends with me sitting on my couch, crying, surrounded by Fun Dip wrappers, while I watch Sesame Street or Caillou, because that’s the channel the TV was on, and I don’t have the energy to get up and find the remote to change it.

On the home front, I think we’re moving soon, which will be a real experience at about 36 weeks pregnant. Though Andy has already committed to doing all the heavy lifting, and basically, to move everything but my clothes. You know, because he’s manly like that. It’s hot and I feel all cared for, and other mushy stuff.

Also, after tomorrow, I have a full week off school for Thanksgiving, which, THANK GOODNESS for that, because it’s going to save my sanity. Then two weeks of clinicals and classes, then one week of final exams.

After that, I can breathe for a while. And become a mom again. The mom of two boys. Two boys. It’s crazy, and I’m actually getting used to it. I think maybe I can do this.

Of course, that’s today’s feeling.

 

 

I was going to be all censored and stuff…but then I wasn’t.

Posted on by
4

So earlier today, Andy showed me this article about how someone or some group of people in Sweden “advertised for” Chris Brown’s upcoming tour by using pictures of Rihanna’s face. You know, the famous pictures of her, beaten by her boyfriend, to the point of being completely unrecognizable, from 2009.

While I’m not sure that was the best way to steer people clear of the tour (in favor of Rihanna’s privacy and whatnot), I feel the same way. It baffles me to no end that he still has fans, and especially female ones. I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest for some time now, and I really don’t know what I was waiting for in putting it off. So here it is. My short (sort of) and sweet (not even a little) rant on my absolute distaste for Chris Brown and everything he is and does:

I loathe Chris Brown. Not only did he beat the living hell out of a woman he claimed to “love” until she was literally unrecognizable, but when he came back into the public eye, a mere two years later, instead of having an attitude of humility and thankfulness that ANYONE was willing to listen to his music anymore, he had the disgusting attitude of, more or less, “EAT MY ASS, EVERYONE, cuz I can beat up a woman and she comes right back to me, and millions of women still love me!”

It disgusts me, as a survivor of abuse in two different relationships, and of sexual abuse in one of them, that the public has generally welcomed him back onto the A-list so warmly, and with arms wide open. I am appalled by the lack of self-worth that oozed from every tweet while he performed at the Grammys last year, things like, “I would let Chris Brown beat me all night long!”

As I watched the award show that night, I sat on the couch and chewed my cheeks until they bled, in utter rage, and I just wept that someone who could do that could be so warmly welcomed back to a show like that so quickly…or at all. The only way I could describe it to my husband, when he asked why it upset me SO BADLY, was that it was like seeing the “man” who used to hit ME, performing up on that stage, to the adoration of millions of girls who were…willing to let him beat them until they needed to be hospitalized?! WHERE IS THEIR SELF WORTH?!

And to anyone who argues, “Well, Rihanna found a way to forgive him…” um, yeah, that’s how the cycle of abuse works. I went crawling back to BOTH of the “men” who physically assaulted me. Multiple times. For years, my mother was a case worker for a domestic abuse prevention agency/safe house. Do you know what the recidivism rate if for abusers who seek treatment? Ninety-seven percent. That means that out of one hundred men who abuse their partners, and are then TREATED BY A PROFESSIONAL to stop the pattern, NINETY-SEVEN OF THAT ONE HUNDRED will go back to beating their significant others in future relationships.

I thought about censoring this, or trying to write it in a way that was a little more politically correct, but there is NOTHING about Chris Brown or his behavior that deserves any kind of justification or defense. Beating your significant other, whether you’re male or female, is not a DEFENDABLE ACT, and you CERTAINLY shouldn’t be lauded and drooled over and even WELCOMED to beat more women just because you can sing and dance.

And I am far from the only person who feels this way.

Miranda Lambert, for example, has my back, and once again, in their feud, Chris Brown shows how absolutely revolting he is, calling anyone who brings attention to the fact that he put a woman in the hospital “stuck in the past,” and implying he can do whatever he wants because he got a couple little golden statues.

Seth Rogen calls attention to the back-ass-ward-ness of it all when he hosts the Spirit Awards (starts at 5:30).

Robin Roberts addressed his past in a Good Morning America interview, and got this reaction:

You’d think he would learn that you don’t just beat the shit out of someone you’re dating and expect everyone to just forget it, but apparently, he’s too stupid for that, or something.

And this one is my absolute favorite. I can’t even add anything to what Andy Levy says about the atrocity that is Chris Brown’s acceptance back into the limelight, because it’s so perfect, and if I had the writing/delivery chops this guy does, I would have LOVED to be the one to give this apology to Chris Brown.

I’ve debated for a long time writing this post at all, because usually, I’m the one saying that to truly take away the power that people who annoy me (or anyone else) have, you should just ignore them. For instance, I despise the entire Kardashian clan with a passion, but you won’t hear me ranting about them, because that’s just giving them more of what they want – free, word-of-mouth publicity. Same with Charlie Sheen (for similar reasons to Chris Brown) and LeAnn Rimes (because she and her new husband cheated on their now-ex spouses to be together, and they want the world to adore them as a couple? Not going to happen). I wouldn’t rant about and protest these people because they just want the attention. Simply take away the attention, ignore them, and they lose their power.

Chris Brown, though…I’m sorry (no I’m not), but beating the person you’re dating is a whole other level of despicable.

There’s my soapbox.